Underneath, her arms are covered in beautifully ornate sleeve-length tattoos, as much an indicator of her hard-core past as her love of the honey-voiced Patsy Cline. Country music is the ultimate locally grown, sustainable product."Īt Kit and the Branded Men's record-release party at Brisbane's 23 Club in December, singer Christina "Kit" Lopez was dandied up in a lavender Western suit with white fringe down the sides. "People are trading cars for bikes, they're shopping at farmers' markets and emphasizing local sources, using recycled items and rejecting corporate consumerism. "Country music totally fits into what is happening in the Bay Area right now," Bloom says. "When you can light all of them up, it feels good."Īround the same time, Scott Bloom started a blog called the Bay Twang to keep up with the tight-knit community of bands that includes 77 El Deora, the B-Stars, and Kit and the Branded Men. "It was three generations," says Kelley, an Iowa native whose Midwestern accent has only grown deeper since relocating to San Francisco. After more than two decades of playing intimate clubs such as the Make Out Room and Thee Parkside for the same set of bolo tie-wearing devotees, the group suddenly noticed lots of fresh faces at its shows, curious teenagers mixing it up with the old rockabilly dudes and onetime punks. Last year, Red Meat was tapped to serve as the backing band for Wanda Jackson, the rock 'n' roll queen (and Elvis Presley's onetime girlfriend) as she was staging a Jack White-assisted comeback. "But what about Ryan Adams or Johnny Cash? Wilco sells out the Greek in a minute. "When you think of country music, at best you think of Taylor Swift," Wolf says. These days it feels as if more artists are forsaking distortion pedals and flannel shirts for steel guitars and cowboy hats, sometimes even without even realizing it. It's not exactly a scene, but a slight shift toward acceptance of an underground genre that has been kicking around since the time when it really wasn't a good idea to walk down Valencia Street.
It started in bars such as Amnesia and the Elbo Room and slowly spread - into the back corner of the antiques emporium Viracocha, neon-lit lounges such as Blondie's, even onto the sidewalks where guys set up their gear in front of vintage clothing stores. Take a walk down Valencia Street, the bustling retail stretch in the heart of San Francisco, where new artisan coffee shops and hip housewares boutiques seem to pop up every day, and you'll notice that the soundtrack has changed. "When people ask what I do, it's easier for me to tell them I genetically alter corn," says singer-songwriter and yes, local country musician "Misisipi" Mike Wolf. They are former punks and metal heads from the Midwest who moved here long ago and eventually got tired of the racket, grew nostalgic for the old George Jones and Tammy Wynette records their parents used to spin on Sunday mornings, and settled in for a life of cult stardom, knowing the Bay Area's deep-rooted aversion to anything served under a cowboy hat. This isn't Nashville, and the people making music with a twang here have little time for that kind of pretense. "What we do is more of an old-school thing. (Hayes Valley), le-fantastique."One of the most common things we hear at a Red Meat show is, 'Are you sure that's country? Because I don't like country music,' " says Smelley Kelley, the singer of the long-running Mission District honky-tonk group.
Get up close to the action at the curvaceous chef’s counter, book a table at the Parisian-inspired bistro tables in the main dining room, or go all out in the private “record room” where Wilson’s favorite tunes provide the soundtrack. And then there’s the music, classic records played on a ‘70s-era turntable, vintage McIntosh sound system, and oversized speakers. Along with caviar eclairs, raw bites like brook trout with pine nut milk, dill, and tangerine, and mains like maitake mushrooms with squid garum and brown butter, Le Fantastique has an impressive, mostly French and entirely white wine list. Esquire, Michelin, the SF Chronicle, Robb Report, and the James Beard Foundation have all called out the seafood and wine spot among 2022’s best. (Courtesy of Fantastique transformed the kissa concept from cocktail lounge to restaurant and no one, it seems, can get enough of chef Robbie Wilson’s Herculean effort.
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